This invention relates to call centers, and in particular, to an inbound/outbound calling system and method used in an integrated contact center.
Most large service oriented companies have a call center for communicating with customers to sell services or products as well as to provide customer services. Customers may call, usually by dialing a toll-free number, into the call center to talk with the agents or representatives. In addition to the inbound calls initiated by the customers, the agents or representatives also initiate outbound calls for selling their products to potential customers, for calling back a customer who called earlier or to alert the customer of any required issue. Traditional forms of the calls, either inbound calls or outbound calls, usually include phone calls and facsimiles.
New communications techniques are continuously being developed following the boom of the Internet. Internet telephony, video conference and web chat are becoming more and more feasible and practical methods for people to communicate with each other because of its unique features and lower costs. There is a trend to evolve call centers into integrated contact centers that can communicate with customers not only by traditional methods, but also by internet-based newly developed communications techniques. However, there exists only the crudest methods to allow interaction between customers and company agents over the Internet. A customer may engage in a web chat, for example. There is however, no known technique of integrating an inbound/outbound call center with Internet media to produce a comprehensive contact center.
An object of the invention is to provide a technique with which a contact center can process and generate inbound/outbound contacts in a variety of forms that integrate Internet and telephony media.
The contact center of the invention is provided with means for generating outbound contacts in a plurality forms including at least one instant online communication form that is capable of instantly communicating with a customer when he or she is online. The online form may include instant web chat, internet audio and/or video telephony, etc.
A priority scheme of the call forms may be preset for each customer and an outbound contact will be tried in one form after another according to this priority scheme until one succeeds.
In a preferred embodiment, means is provided for detecting whether the targeted customer is online or not before the contact center tries a form of instant online communication method.
In one embodiment, an Internet address is used by the contact center to initiate an outbound contact over the Internet. The address of the contacted party is sent to an agent, and the online contact is established.
The above and further features and advantages of the present invention will be further explained with the preferred embodiment.